"India's top court has ruled that adultery is no longer a crime, declaring a colonial-era law that punished the offence with jail time unconstitutional and discriminatory against women. The more than century-old law stated that any man who slept with a married woman without her husband's permission had committed adultery, a crime carrying a five-year prison term" (para 1-2).

"Aceh is one of the most conservative provinces of Muslim-majority Indonesia, and the only part of the country that enforces sharia law for crimes like adultery, consumption of alcohol and homosexuality" (para 3).

"Article 146 of Sudan's Criminal Act of 1991 provides that death by stoning is the punishment for adultery by a married person whereas sexual intercourse between a man and woman who are not married carries the lesser sentence of 100 lashes" (para 5).

"Women’s rights organisations are particularly concerned that the new penal code includes stoning as a punishment for the crime of adultery. There are 15 countries in which stoning is either practised, legalised, or both, and if this law comes into effect, Brunei will be the sixteenth. Stoning is not prescribed in the Qur’an or in any other religious texts. We view the introduction of this penal code as part of a larger retrogressive step for women’s rights and gender equality in the country where spousal rape, for instance, is still tolerated under the Shari’a law" (Para 2-3). "While stoning is a method of punishment to be applied to both women...more

"In May and August 2015, the State party adopted the Buddhist Women Special Law, the Population Control and Health-Care Law, the Religious Conversion Law and the Monogamy Law, which discriminate against women and have a negative impact on the enjoyment of their rights under the Convention" (page 4) (Coder comment: the Monogamy Law prohibits polygyny as well as extramarital affairs - ARR).

"Women in need of protection who could not find it often ended up in prison, either due to a lack of a protection center in their province or district, or based on local interpretation of “running away” as a moral crime. Adultery, fornication, and kidnapping are crimes under the law. Women often were convicted of those crimes in situations of abuse, rape, or forced marriage, or on the basis of invalid evidence, including virginity tests. Running away is not a crime under the law, and both the Supreme Court and AGO issued directives to this effect, but women and girls continued to be detained for running away from home or...more

"The penal code also discriminates against women in specific crimes concerning adultery and honor. Under the law, a man is only accused of adultery if his alleged act is committed within the marital home, while a woman can be accused of adultery regardless of the place" (para 11).

"The federal penal code (CPF) considers: i) the crime of rape and its punishment, including statutory rape, marital rape, and rape of concubines. ii) it does not include injuries, nor "honor" killings, nor the crime of adultery; no federal entity classifies honor killings, and only Jalisco and Durango classify adultery" (page 6).

"The Committee is concerned that women and girls who are victims of sexual abuse risk facing criminal proceedings if they press charges, since the reporting of rape, if not proved, can be considered a confession of sexual relations outside of marriage (zina), which is criminalized under articles 225 and 226 of the Penal Code" (8).

"women are punished for an adulterous act by a prison term of between six months and two years, regardless of marital status. However, her adulterous male partner is punished by the same penalty if he is married, but only half as long if he is not married. The proposed draft Palestinian penal code does not discriminate between men and women with regard to the crime of adultery. It includes identical provisions for both with respect to both the elements of the crime and the sentence" (11). "The personal status codes in force among both Muslims and Christians share several general principles that are applicable when it comes marriage issues. The...more

"Doctors have begun implementing an order from the Russian Investigative Committee - seen as the equivalent of the FBI - demanding that all medical evidence of sex involving girls under the age of 16 should be reported to the police" (para 2). "Doctors must 'inform police about all cases when virginity was lost as well as about cases of pregnancies and abortions involving girls under 16 years old', he demanded. Specifically, the order instructs doctors to check girls 'and report all cases when the integrity of the hymen is damaged'" (para 6-7).

"In 2015, Amnesty International called on the Tunisian government to pass laws recognizing martial rape and eliminate those criminalizing sexual relations between consenting, unmarried adults" (para 4).

"Some proposed amendments to the penal code would make matters worse for women, including a change to the penal code which would extend the possibility for reduced sentences for murder and assault to any family member who catches a family member engaged in illicit sexual intercourse (such as adultery). The government should repeal such provisions"(3-4)

"'Article 427 of Afghanistan’s criminal law regarding fornication states that losing one’s virginity before marriage is a serious offence and the ‘criminal’ should be punished for it,' said Ashraf Baskhtyari, head of the Forensic Science Centre, an NGO that opposes forced virginity examinations. 'In addition, according to articles 444 and 449, police are permitted to seek the help of experts to solve cases in which there is a need for a medical examination; therefore, the police force of Afghanistan sends the ‘criminals’ accused of sexual crimes to a forensic centre'" (para 30). "'Even when a person is accused of fornication, the case must be proved by strong evidence as well...more

"The criminal code excuses a husband who kills his wife or her partner found engaging in an act of adultery in his home, but a wife who kills her husband under similar circumstances is subject to prosecution" (24).

"The law falls short, however, of ensuring protections for non-cohabiting current or former partners, spouses, or relatives, leaving a critical gap in protection for women and girls who have never lived or are no longer living with boyfriends, partners, spouses, or in-laws who abused them."

"Adultery is frowned on, but not uncommon, and to some degree may be expected for both men and women. Traditional punishments involve a fine imposed on the male adulterer by the aggrieved husband, and no particular formal punishment for the woman"(para 2)

"Among the legal novelties introduced by the Family Code are the juridical equality of both spouses and the joint exercise of parental authority. Their domicile is established in the home where both spouses have their habitual residence. Another important change is the disappearance of the concept of adultery; on the other hand, that of infidelity is included for both spouses" (35).

"In 26 February 2015, the Constitutional Court ruled that Article 241 of the Criminal Code, which stipulates imprisonment for up to two years for those who commit adultery, is unconstitutional on the grounds that it restricts the confidentiality and freedom of privacy guaranteed by the Constitution by intervening in sexual self- determination and the private realms of an individual’s sex life" (40).

"The judicial system has repeatedly found itself challenged by Islamist elements. However, the secular courts have consistently maintained that adultery or pre-marital sex is not illegal in Bangladesh" (8).

"A woman has been stoned to death in south-east Yemen after being accused of adultery and prostitution by an Al-Qaeda Sharia court" (para 1). "According to Islamic sharia law, married men or women can be stoned to death for having sex outside wedlock, while those who are unmarried face being lashed" (para 9).

"The majority of marriages are still forced, honor killings are not unusual, and any involvement of the justice system in a rape case usually means that only the victim goes to jail, charged with adultery or with having had premarital sex — unless she, as a commonly imposed solution, is forced to marry her rapist"(2). From this statement it appears that adultery laws are specific to women at least most of the time since they are usually the victim of rape (ENB-Coder Comment)

"Article 630 of the previous Penal Code expressly allowed a husband to kill his wife and her lover, if he caught them in flagrante, ('in blazing offense' in Latin; legal term that indicates a criminal has been caught in the act of committing an offense). However if he knows that his wife acted under coercion, he may only kill her rapist (Article 630). While in the new Penal Code Article 630 is unchanged, a paragraph has been added to Article 300 which again stresses the exemption of husband from qisas (retaliation) in cases where he kills his wife and her lover in flagrante. In fact, not only has Article 630...more

"The Committee welcomes the revision of the Criminal Code to bring it into line with the Convention and the decision of the Constitutional Court of 2009, in which the Court considered that criminal provisions regarding adultery were discriminatory against women. The Committee is concerned, however, about the absence in the State party’s legislation of a specific definition of discrimination against women in accordance with article 1 of the Convention" (3)